Feeling Very Blessed!

I'm feeling very blessed this evening! I've been feeling kind of overwhelmed with everything going on, the holidays, my new online store, my husband's job search.... but today I'm feeling very, very blessed!!! My MIL went into the hospital yesterday morning thinking she had appendicitus. Well, it turned out she had a growth on her ovary. They scheduled surgery for today and in the meantime, my dh and daughter got in the car and drove down there. We got the news this afternoon that the growth is benign and she is all taken care of after this surgery. My great neice went into the hospital on Christmas Eve being tested for RSV. She was only 11 days old at the time. She was in the hospital with RSV for about 5 days. They were out of town from where they live then too. Today the are at their own home being greatful for what they've come through. My son received his score for the ACT he took. He won't let me broadcast his score, but it's a good one. We're so proud of him and are thankful that he may be getting some scholarship money for school too :) God is great!!

Thanks for reading my gratitudes for today, I appreciate you letting me share that with you.

Now onto the card. I got some new paper today. The one I used is Black Magic from Core'dinations. It's pretty cool. It's black on the surface, but color in the middle.

I used it to make the card base and then used a cuttlebug embossing folder for the swirls. Then I sanded the swirls so the purple would show through. I stamped the MyFavoriteThings lavender stamp with Memento ink and colored it with Copics. White highlights were made with my Inksentials white pen. I airbrushed some yellow onto the background and adhered it to Bazzill bling paper adding dew drops to the corners. I used the SCS Sketch #207 and added May Arts ribbon to the sides. This paper is pretty cool and I love my airbrush system :)

Our quote for the day: "People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great evening!!!

My new Christmas toy :)

Good Morning! I did it!! I finally hooked up my Christmas toy. Cliff bought me the Copic airbrush system and an air compressor for Christmas - he's such a keeper! :) I LOVE it!!! When I went to the Copic certification class we got to play with them and that's when I decided I really wanted one. This is the first time I've played with mine so the results are definitely not 'professional' but it's so cool!

You'll notice I also used colors other than blue and green although I snuck the blue and green in there on Willow's clothes :)

I started with a Bazzill card base which is not quite as bright as this pic is showing it, but I didn't have time to play that much with the colors on PhotoShop. Then I use October Afternoon's Paper Lanterns from the Daydream Collection and KM Building from the Hometown collection. For the image I stamped Willow twice, colored her once with prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits and then cut the 2nd one out and used it to mask the first while I airbrushed around her. It was so much fun! Then I added the primas and the dew drops.

This is also the same sketch that I used from www.fridaysketchersblog.blogspot.com. Sketch #30. If you like sketches you should really check it out!

Our quote for the day: "Love, like a river, will cut a new path Whenever it meets an obstacle." - Crystal Middlemas

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!!!

I'm hooked on blues and greens!

Good Morning! Yes, it's still morning here! :) I made this card last night and I have to say, I just love these little mice. I was talking to my mom on the phone yesterday and she said that she loves them too. She also said, "Well, you know I love all your cards, but sometimes some of them just jump out at me. Those little mice cards do." Can you get any more support than that? I love you Mom!!!

I'm stuck on the blues and greens!! I just love them. This card started with a bazzill cardstock base and then I used October Afternoon's Hometown collection of paper. Again, they are all double-sided, which you know I love! But, on this card, I used 3 different pieces, Woolsworths is the floral, KM Building is the background lined paper, and County Library is the one with leaves. I stamped Mudpie (the House Mouse) onto cream colored paper with Memento black ink and colored him with Copics. I added glitter and some doodling along with inking the edges and attached him to some green Bazzill Bling. Then I added the flowers and ribbon with a brad. I did decorate the inside a bit with the same papers.

The sketch I used is from www.fridaysketchersblog.blogspot.com and I used sketch #32.

Our quote for the day: "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. " — Nelson Mandela

Thanks so much for stopping by and remember to jump on over the the 2RedBananas blog to enter our challenge for some blog candy :)

A 2RedBananas Challenge

Hi!! I hope everyone had a great Christmas, we sure did! It's snowing again here, but since I'm inside, I sure do like watching it :)

We have posted a challenge over on the 2RedBananas blog and we would love for you to go check it out and participate, blog candy is involved :)

This is the card I made for the challenge and I won't ask you to read the details twice as they are already on the 2RedBananas blog.

It's a fun one so we hope you have a few minutes to jump on over there and give it a whirl!

Our quote for the day: "The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. " — Pierre Corneille

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Keeping Warm :)

Hi! I know I'm WAY later than I try to be, but believe it or not, I'm STILL not finished Christmas shopping. I only have a couple things to get, but .......insert lots of whining here :)

I'd rather be like Mudpie Mouse here in this cup of coffee :)

These stamps are so cute and really versatile too. For this card I started with a Bazzill base and added some Bazzill bling and October Afternoon paper (Daydream: Patio Umbrella) - guess where you can get them :) I stamped the image onto white cardstock and then onto the flowered side of the patterned paper. I also stamped another image on white cardstock. I paper pieced the coffee cup onto the image stamped on white. Then on the other image stamped on white, I colored with prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits, then I cut Mudpie Mouse out and pop-dotted him onto the original image. I added some glitter to the steam, but you can't see it from my picture. The ribbon I used is pink sheer twinkle ribbon and is very dainty, but sparkly. I cut the blue flower in the corner from the patterned paper and then added a Fresh Mowed Grass dew drop to it. I think that's it. I'm having fun with these little guys, that's for certain.

Our quote of the day: "She gives most who gives with joy. " — Mother Teresa

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful holiday filled with peace, joy and happiness.

House Mouse Cuteness :)

WOW! Things are moving very quickly around here. Thank you so much for your warm response to 2RedBananas. We are making things happen as quickly as we can and now you can go to the 2RedBananas blog. You can also go to the store. We really appreciate the support that you all have given us, it's a really nice feeling. After you check out the store, we would love you to leave comments about what you would like to see us carry. You can either leave a comment here or on the 2RedBananas blog. We want to carry the things that you would like to have. Our grand opening with prizes and lots of fun will be after our exclusive stamps arrive and we will then just have a BIG OLE party :)

Okay, now to the card for today: For this one I used a bazzill green card base and some October Afternooon papers from the Hometown collection, specifically Main Street (the stripes) and Depot Park (the yellow dots). These papers are double sided and on the inside of this card I punched one of the flowers from the opposite side of the Depot Park paper and attached it to a strip of the stripes from the Main Street paper. These are nice medium weight papers, not too heavy, but definitely not thin. Very nice to work with.

The stamps I used are Lip Smackin' Relaxin', which is one of the Jan 09 House Mouse Stamp of the Month collection. New stamps for each month will be released monthly! I also used the sentiment stamps "Very Mice Day"


I colored the image in prismacolor pencils and then added glitter pen, white flock, and Wintergreen Blingz. These Blingz are cool!! I had only used the Shimmerz before and I love them, but the Blingz give you a little more texture in the sparkle :) I used Nestabilities to cut out the image and the Bazzill Bling behind it. I also used photo corners to ground the squares and then of course I added the Fresh Mowed Grass dew drops :) We will be getting Glue Dots in the store because they are my FAVORITE thing to attach these dew drops. I actually use the mini glue dots for these.

Okay, our quote of the day: "Great necessities call out great virtues. " — Abigail Adams

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful warm day!

BIG, HUGE NEWS :)

Announcing the grand opening of a new online store " 2RedBananas ". You can visit the site at http://2redbananas.com/. This is something I've been thinking about for a while now and things have just been falling into place...well other than the fact that I'm opening the week before Christmas when everyone is crazy busy.

We are going to be carrying many products that are great for stampers, scrapbookers, as well as paper artists. We will also be carrying stamps that are exclusive to 2RedBananas. Many of you already know Jami Bova from her blog as well as other design teams. Well I'm thrilled to let you know that she is not only on the 2RedBananas design team, she will also be illustrating stamps! Woo Hoo. Our exclusive stamps are not ready yet, so we will wait until we have them ready to sell before doing an actual "grand opening" party. But the site is up and running and we have some great products in our inventory and more on the way. House Mouse stamps, The Robin's Nest Dew Drops, Tsukineko inks ( including Memento, Versafine and Brilliance), Webster's Pages, May Arts Ribbons, Maya Road products just to name some of them. We have also received October Afternoon, but they are not up on the website quite yet. They will be today though.



The other members of our design team are fresh faces to blogs and design teams although they all are incredibly talented and have been chosen because they diversify our team. Some are more scrapbookers, some more card makers, everyone does it all at least a little bit. So I hope you find great inspiration from them as I know I have. So here are the 2RedBananas Design Team members and links to their blogs.



Jami Bova - http://westamphappy.blogspot.com/

Maraya Gates - http://itsmybailiwick.blogspot.com/

Wendy Kastner - http://nowherebayou.blogspot.com/

Teresa Grau - http://leftyscrapper.blogspot.com/

and me :)



I am also starting a new blog just for 2RedBananas and you can find it at http://2redbananas.blogspot.com/. Please be patient, I haven't worked on it as much as I should have by now :)



So here's my card for today, which of course uses products available at 2RedBananas :)

I LOVE this House Mouse stamp called: Warmth for Winter and the sentiment called Friendship Warms. I colored them with prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits. The background paper is bazzill with October Afternoon's Patio Umbrella paper (it's double sided, my favorite). The ribbon is from May Arts and is also available at 2RedBananas as well as the dew drops, I used Fresh Mowed Grass and Island Blossoms.



Wow, that was a pretty long post, but I'm just so excited!!!! I hope you find lots of inspiration and fun at 2RedBananas.



Our quote for the day: "He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. " - Roy L. Smith

Thanks so much for stopping by and for sharing this very exciting time with me!

More Snow Buddies and more Blue

Hi! You would think by my last couple of posts that my favorite color is blue. It's not, it's actually red, but I love using blues and greens for winter cards. It's DEFINITELY winter here today. Sara and I went out for just a couple minutes earlier and the thermometer in my car said it was 12 degrees. The flurries are blowing and the wind is blowing hard! The radio station said that we will get down to between 0 and -5 degrees tonight/early tomorrow morning! BRRRRR!!

This card uses one of my new Riley stamps! I love this little guy and they were on sale, so I bought a couple of them. It also uses Bazzill Bling, Doodlebug Sugar Coated paper, Quickutz flower cookie cutter dies, prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits, white pen for highlighting, Stampendous sentiment stamp, EKSuccess photo corner punch, cuttlebug embossing folders, glitter, flocking and glitter pen. I made it for a challenge over on SCS. The challenge is here
if you would like to play too!


Some really sweet news!!! My first great niece was born yesterday. She has an older brother so now I have a great nephew and a great niece. Her name is Berit Hannah and I will show you a picture when I get one. They are are doing very well! :)

Our quote for the day: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulously warm day!

Snow Buddies

Good Morning! This card shows what it COULD look like at my house right not, but it was much warmer making these little guys inside instead of outside :)

The funny news is that my parents who live in southern Louisiana woke up yesterday to SNOW!! My Mom called me because in southern Louisiana you only get snow about every 7 ish years or so. She was so excited and my Dad only likes to come see us in the warm months, although he has come when it was cold. They both grew up in West Virginia so they have both seen their share of snow. They got 1 - 1 1/2" and Mom said everything was white :) It was gone by 11:00 am!

These little guys are made with the Sugarplum Snowmen set from CC Designs. I focused on just the snowmen cause I think they are so cute! the paper I used is Swell Noel from K&Co. This time I colored with prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits and added glitter :) I punched snowflakes with an old snowflake punch and added dew drops to the centers. The word window punch I used is from McGill.

I love these colors and you can tell from my last couple posts :) Christmas cards still haven't been mailed, maybe today.

OOooo, another fun thing I get to do today. My daughter has asked me to come to school for a Role Model Appreciation time. She is a freshman in high school, so it kind of surprised me that they are doing this, but it really made me feel good that she chose me as her Role Model....WOW! She is going to read part of a letter that she wrote to me, so I'm going to bring tissues with me :)

Our quote for the day: "Whoever is happy will make others happy, too. " — Anne Frank

Have a wonderful day and stay warm!! Thanks for stopping by!

Cutie Patootie!

Good Morning! Still snow on the ground here - It's okay though because the sun is shining :) Do you ever feel so busy that you think you're going to meet yourself coming and going? That's where I am right now. Many, many things going on and some really exciting ones too!! :) I can't wait to be able to share them with you. I know that's a tease, and I'm sorry about that, but I'm really excited!

Okay, onto the card. This is one of Christine's digi images from All That Scraps. This set is a set of 3 Gingersnaps - Snow Bunnies, I just love the names. I am not at all a digi scrapper, but I really like adding the digi images to my cards.
For this one, I started with a Bazzill base and added some K & Co paper matted with pink Bazzill. I colored the Gingersnap with Copics and added white highlights and white flocking. Stamped the pink sentiment piece with the snowflake folder and then cuttlebugged it with the snowflake folder. Added some punched snowflakes with glitter brads and some dew drops :) Oh, the Gingersnap is pop-dotted for some dimension. Hope you enjoy her.

Our quote for the day: "My basic principle is that you don't make decisions
because they are easy;
you don't make them because they are cheap;
you don't make them because they're popular;
you make them because they're right." - Theodore Hesburgh

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a fabulous day!

It's Penguin Weather

Good Monday Morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend. It's getting closer and closer to Christmas and I'm still not ready. My Christmas cards haven't gone out yet, so I'm showing you another one today!

I love these little guys. The stamps are from Hampton Arts, but I can't tell you the name of the set because my studio is so messy that I can't find where I put the packaging :) I'm sure it's under some paper. I got to use lots of fun things on this card. I started with chili colored cardstock (it's really red, I don't know who named it!) Then the polka dot paper is from BoBunny and the green circle is Bazzill Bling. I colored the penguins with Copics and added glitter, flocking, glitter pens and diamond glaze. Then I added the red and green bling. Fun and easy!

My posts are going to be short for a while because I've got some really exciting things going on and also I have to get ready for Christmas. I'm supposed to be mailing packages today, but they aren't ready yet and I'm playing Bunco tonight!

Our quote for the day: "Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." - Dale Turner

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a fabulous day!

Got Snow?

We sure do. It snowed again yesterday. Cliff took Sara to school early and about 2 hours later you couldn't see the tire tracks where he pulled out of the driveway! It's sunny today, but cold, brrrrr. A good day to stay in and stamp :)

These little guys are from the new Sugarplum Snowmen set by CC Designs. Christine is so good at drawing these little guys!! I colored in Copics and did some fun little things with my colorless blender like polka dots on the snowman's scarf and faded the little boy's jeans. I also used Cuttlebug Tree Top set which cuts the trees and then lets you emboss them, very fun. You can find it here. Lots of glitter, lots of dew drops :) It's a great set!!!

Our quote for the day: "Love is like a mountain, Hard to climb, But once you get to the top The view is beautiful." -Daniel Monroe Tuttle

I hope you have a fabulously warm day, unless you like the cold :) Thanks so much for stopping by!

Gift Card Holder

Good Morning! Snow is still on the ground here today, but the sun is shining, how about for you?
This morning's card was actually made for one of the SCS Challenges, but I didn't get it finished for a while so it hasn't been uploaded to the gallery over there yet, but it will :) Better late than never right???

I love how all these CC Designs sets work together. They are so much fun!! For this card I used the elf from Sugarplum North Pole, the tree and the gifts from Sugarplum Christmas Scenery Set and the "Merry & Bright" from AmyR Stamps - Christmas Sentiments set. I colored everything with Copics and added my essentials white highlights and liquid applique to the puff on the elf's hat, gems to the gree and glitter pen various places. I also used my EK Success corner punch.

On the inside I used again a gift from the Sugarplum Christmas Scenery Set and the circle stamps are from an Art Warehouse clear set. Another fun part about this card is that the middle section folds and there is a slit in it where the gift card fits right in so it doesn't fall all over inside the card, it has it's very own place :)

Another fun one to make and I hope to make some more because I am giving some gift cards this year. :)

Our quote of the day: "Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."

- Thomas Carlyle

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

The Caterpillar

Good Morning! I decided to show a card that has some warm colors in it today, because we have snow covering the ground this morning :) It's beautful, but COLD! I made this card a while back but forgot that I hadn't shared it.......so.....today it is :)

The butterfly is one of Karen Lockhart's images that I colored in my Copic class and used the airbrush piece for the background. I forgot how much I loved it. The quote is from a Verve Visual set and I absolutely love this quote. I have other ideas for it too, just haven't finished them yet. I just used scrap papers for this card and some ribbon, dew drops, gems and glitter pen to finish it! Very simple.

Anyone finished with their Christmas shopping yet? Not me, but I am on schedule.....at least for now. I better get to making some more Christmas cards though :)

Our quote of the day: "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master call a butterfly." - Richard Bach

Have a wonderful and warm day and thanks for stopping by!